Be careful of what you urinate into... It could be art...

In a traditional art world ideas can be outside of the box but you can't stray too far. Conceptual art on the other hand steps out of the box, laughs and proceeds to destroy the box...
Conceptual artists challenge the traditional artistic process, it's aim is showing that the art is not in the work but in the idea behind it. Marcel Duchamp paved the way for conceptual artists with his use of found objects or 'readymades'. Duchamps most famous readymade is 'Fountain' which was a urinal turned upside down and signed by Duchamp using the false name of 'R.Mutt'.  

'Fountain' (1917) - R.Mutt (Marcel Duchamp)

In the traditional world this urinal could not possibly be accepted as art, especially since the artist who signed it did not make it or even alter it.This is challenged by the notion that if you take an object outside of it's natural habitat and place it in an exhibition setting it then becomes 'art'. But where are the boundaries? Can myself as an artist take any object, place it an exhibitive setting and declare is as art?
My answer is yes you probably can but should you?As much as I'd love to go around taking objects and saying "I hereby declare this object as art!" I feel that if you were to produce art like this it would have to be provocative, disputing an ideal such as what 'Fountain' did or displaying the object in a way which is out of the ordinary. Besides that, how boring would it be doing that all your artistic career, very boring is the answer... very boring indeed.

"Score for a hole in the ground"- Jem Finer

A modern example of a conceptual artist is Jem Finer. One of Jem's site-specific pieces titled "Score for a hole in the ground" is a large 7 meter high gramophone horn coming out of the ground. The beauty of this idea is what's hiding under the ground, attached to the horn is large pipes that are struck by running water and droplets. The sound played from the hole is never the same. "Score for a hole in the ground" challenges peoples perception of what they believe to be music by showing that music isn't just made by conventional methods but that we can listen to the environment in ways we never realised. This piece has changed my pre-conceived notion of 'what is music?', it has challenged myself to think about interesting ways of making sounds using methods that anything but conventional.

These two examples in this blog show an importance in the choice of how and where an artist chooses to exhibit work. Would Duchamps 'Fountain' have had the same the effect on people if it was placed in the middle of a forest? Would Jems Gramophone challenge your perception of music if it was stuck in the middle of a gallery? No...